The “L” word

What is his definition of “love”?

You might want to ask him to define it, Deb, because there’s a chance it’s probably different than yours/ours/normal people.

I asked my SA this in a therapy session last year, and his response was along the lines of “love means you really like your partner, you like spending time together, and you’re good friends” – different than my definition of LOVE, being more along the lines of: feels like the person is a part of you, completing one another, you are in awe of who they are, intimate together, respect them, honor, value, appreciate, adore them, feel grateful for them, cherish them, protect them, accepting of all their flaws, care deeply for them, miss them, would never hurt them, want the best for them, they are a priority in your life, and you can’t imagine living without them. Pre-discovery, I thought he loved me in this way whenever he’d say “I love you”, because that’s how I defined love.

So I haven’t had that exact experience of him loving another woman (although after d-day he did state he wanted his addiction instead of me, and chose it, which felt somewhat similar for me). But I have dealt with the heartbreak of my SA explaining to me that he has never loved me on the same deep level as I loved him throughout our relationship – he says now he didn’t have the capacity because he has a shallow heart from his addiction. Another recovering addict I was in contact with, with many years of sobriety, agreed that sex addiction numbs an addict out so much to the point they can’t even feel real love for their spouse/partner. It “stunts” them. Their drug is their full time primary relationship. Over time with recovery, they apparently begin to thaw out and discover real feelings and human emotions, like real love, that they’ve been missing.

I know – it feels so bizarre, this sick reality we are in. It’s unimaginable years ago to think we’d be here and faced with this insanity!

These men are truly so emotionally disturbed that the have no concept of love–so we are talking two different languages.

Last year Larry revealed that he had thought he was in love with one of his ‘favorite’ hookers (disclosure on the installment plan). He claimed she was a really nice person. WTF? She was a HOOKER!

And all the while he was living in my house, with my nice furniture, eating meals I had prepared and was planning on marrying me.

That was the final straw. The door to my heart slammed shut, the locks engaged and chains wrapped around it with padlocks in place.

I will never ask for, nor do I want any more disclosures. That was enough. Nothing else matters.

That can never be forgiven let alone forgotten.

That’s when I truly stopped loving him.

Thought of it.

My STBXDAH still sometimes “slips” and says “love you guys” when he leaves a message on the phone. It makes me want to barf.

For me, my definition of love is like Victorias. My h used to tell me he loved me all the time pre and post discovery. Now I know he loved me because I cooked, cleaned, shopped for groceries, took care of all the house and kids needs, doted on him (puke), worked in the yard with him. He loved me because I was his mule plus I was a great looking curtain for his secret life. No wonder he ‘loved me’ so much.

Deb, my h said he thought he ‘was in love for 24 hours’ with one of the women who worked for him who there was never any sexual contact with. This apparently happened the day she quit her job. And he was so fixated on a porn video stripper that he’d buy her lingerie, flowers, and traveled twice to go see her. Yet he apparently never had any physical contact with her either. My guess is that this is all part of the ‘intriguing’ they talk about with SA. They want.. or think they want.. what they can’t have. The Craigslist skank he had an ongoing thing with..he apparently didn’t find her attractive, and judging from her photo, I can see why. But she was available. He’s had a lifelong fear of erectile dysfunction and a fear of sex, period, apparently, and loaded up with Viagra to do these little escapades. I’m getting queasy just typing this. Bottom line, I have no idea what makes these guys tick. I am really sorry for what your friend is going through, and you..and all of us. Is your friend sure that he’s a sex addict and not just an unfaithful serial cheater? Because I thought one of the hallmarks of sex addiction was immediate self-loathing after having sex. But then again, none of these SAs fit into a neat little category, so who knows. It’s all just a bloody heartbreaking mess. xoxo

My H told me once that he doesn’t think he ever really “loved” his first wife. He admitted that he didn’t really know what true love was. He says what he has with me is “true deep down love”, the kind of love where you miss the other person when they are gone. The kind of love where thoughts of you enter their minds several times during the day and wondering how your doing and can’t wait to tell you about my day when I get home.

I fell out of love with him the day I discovered his second life. It was then that I realized I had no idea who he was. The marriage was a farce. So I told him that once he’s well into recovery and self discovery, I will attempt to get to know him all over again and we’ll see if I fall in love with this new guy. It was painful for him to hear, but I didn’t care. It was the truth.

Slowly, and I mean very slowly, I’m beginning to see this new guy and it’s promising. But I won’t ever tell him “I love you” ever again, until I’m sure I feel it. He, however, still says it all the time. Which is fine, a lot of people just say it as a habit. But for me, it takes on a whole new meaning now.

Hope I explained that well. Much love, Claire

I wish that I could stop loving my husband. He has hurt me deeply and I am wounded to the core. I just don’t see how I could be hurting this bad if I did not love him. I was hoping that he would be able to show me that he loved me back just as much. He either doesn’t or can’t or his addictive mind set is embedded so deep in his soul that he can not see through it. I guess I am still working through it as we work through this divorce. Some would say that I loved who I thought he was. I guess that is possible, just hard to understand. It is overwhelming to think that what we had in the past 27 years wasn’t more than his addiction. I continue to question everything that happened as I work through this trauma. I wonder if I am just stuck clinging on to what I thought was my truth and the fact that he wants a divorce. I guess this is still the post traumatic stress that keeps me in this state of not accepting what is reality. I battle with myself for feeling shame that I am not further along in this process. I am sad for those of you who are new to the discovery and have to admit that three years down the road, I am still struggling. I have made progress and I continue to get stronger. My pace is my pace and that is all I can do. On the other hand, for those of you who are still processing after several years have gone by, I am here to tell you that you are not alone. And once again, I must thank Joann for creating this site and all of the wonderful woman here that have been supportive to not only myself but to all of us.

Kmf,

I am soaking in your words. The love they had for us was to appease his own anxiety and they could not recognize ours. Very interesting way to put it!!!! You are so right, they are intimacy avoiders that don’t even know who they are. I also think your spot on with the fact that they don’t know how to love or be loved. They have to imitate and mimic.

I need to put these thoughts into my soul so that I can stop this heartache. The fact that they can’t love or know how to how does that reflect what I felt toward him? Do I really not know what it feels like for someone to love me? Was I trying to keep my marriage alive because that was what I was “told” to do? Where does my responsibility to someone end and how do you stop caring? If he is as sick as he is, am I not supposed to try to help him? Please understand that I am not suggesting that I put what is best for me behind his sick values. As soon as I found out about his SA, this was the line for me that I stood my ground for all other behaviors. It is still hard to see our relationship die. Even if I know it is because he has problems that he will not address. It also worries me that his addiction became so intense by the time I discovered it, that he is incapable of making decisions that are in our best interest. Kind of like with my Mom and her alcoholism. In the end, I think that her brain had been so affected by the alcohol that nothing mattered anymore. So sad, and so difficult to watch someone as they fall into addictions.

They may not know how to love or to be intimate, but they know right from wrong.

Just in the process of growing up they observed, whether through their own families, friends families, or the movies, what a husband is supposed to do and look like.

So they go through the motions so that from the outside he looks like the perfect husband and in many of our cases they fooled us too.

Maybe some of them never learned how to love or to be intimate. Or …. maybe they learned that if the relationship looks good from the outside, then that’s all they have to invest in it. That gives them free reign to have a second life because no one would ever think that such a nice guy would do such horrible things. The perfect cover up.

Just thinking out loud.

Cindy, personally I think you’re right that he is pushing you away because he is nowhere near ready to look at his sickness. And sorry to be crude, but if he’s ‘seeing someone,’ it’s probably someone he’s paying to wack him off. He’s going to hit rock bottom eventually, in one way or another, and something about the way you’ve described him in your posts makes me think that he’s really scared, but not yet scared enough to face it. I don’t remember if you said if he ever went to even one SAA meeting or ever went to a therapist after he got found out? You’re not crazy, Cindy. You’re basically dealing with the equivalent of a junkie who’s currently protecting his drug at all costs, because he has no clue how to be real. I’m so sorry.. I know you still love him.. But you deserve so much better than what he’s put you through. I have this image in my head of him really hitting rock bottom down the road, finally admitting how sick he is, and then realizing what he threw away.. his wife, his best friend, the woman who was even willing to give him a chance after having her life destroyed by him.. Payback’s gonna be a bitch for this guy. Sending you much love and hugs. xoxo